coming up, controversies and conflicts as the us catholic bishops prepare for a key meeting. and, in west africa, finding a way to help people abandon the ancient practice of female circumcision. plus a commitment ceremony for older couples who want to spend the rest of their lives together but choose not to get married. major funding for religion and et things knew weekly is provide bid the lily endowment. an indianapolis based family foundation.

additional funding also provided by mutual of america. designing customized, individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. the estate of william j. carter. the jane henson foundation and the corporation for public broadcasting. welcome. i'm kim lawton, sitting in for bob abernethy. thank you for joining us. after a two-year-long investigation, the vatican strongly condemned a 2006 book on sexuality written by a prominent american nun. the vatican's doctrine office said just love by sister margaret farley reflects a quote "defective understanding" of church teaching on issues including masturbation, homosexuality, marriage and divorce. sister farley taught christian ethics at yale divinity school for more than 30 years. she said her book was not intended to be an expression of official catholic teaching, but rather an "exploration of contemporary interpretations." with this week's news, the book

has shot up the bestsellers' charts. many lay catholics around the country have been rallying in support of u.s. nones -- nuns. last week, the umbrella group representing the majority of american catholic sisters pushed back against a vatican rebuke of them. in april, the vatican accused the leadership conference of women religious of having "serious doctrinal problems" and ordered the group to place itself under the authority of seattle's archbishop. conference leaders will go to rome tuesday for a meeting with church officials to discuss the situation. meanwhile at the vat cap, the investigation continues in the so-called "vatileaks" scandal in which private papal documents have been leaked to journalists. the pope's butler, paolo gabriele, was formally questioned this week. under vatican law, he faces up to six years in prison on charges of aggravated theft of the documents. but after gabriele's arrest, more documents were leaked, along with an anonymous note threatening still more unless

certain church officials resign, including cardinal tarcisio bertone, the vatican secretary of state. bertone, who's been targeted in many of the leaks, companied pope benedict the sixteenth to milan last weekend for a huge event-the world meeting of families. an estimated one million people attended a special mass there. benedict announced the next world meeting of families will be in philadelphia, in 2015. he said he looks forward to taking part, "god willing." he'll then be 88 years old. amid all of this, the u.s. catholic bishops will be holding their semiannual meeting this coming week in atlanta. joining me now are kevin eckstrom, editor in chief of religion news service and patricia zapor, staff writer of catholic news service. welcome to both of you. on their public agenda, the bishops right now don't have a discussion scheduled about the situation with the nuns but a lot of people say they've got to be talking about it, behind closed doors. how big of an issue is this for

them and for the church? kevin. >> i think it is a big issue for them, the bishops and the hierarchy have really had a public relations headache on this. this has not played out the way that they thought. people are rallying around the nuns - they're coming to their defense. but i think, really what you are seeing is a bit, not quite a civil war but kind of a civil skirmish within the u.s. church about what it means to be catholic. the hierarchy says you know, you can't stray the line on orthodoxy or theology and we need you to be talking about homosexuality and abortion and gay marriage. and the nuns say, well actually we want to talk about social justice and we want to talk about the poor and we want to talk about what else it means to be catholic. and so it's a fight over when you're a catholic in the public sphere, what do you talk about, what do you emphasize. and the sisters have long maintained that it's not that they don't follow the church teaching on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage and so on,

but that they see their charism is to take care of the poor. to take care of the people who are marginalized in society. you know they don't see focusing on one as diminishing the other in terms of issues that are important. >> it's not a zero sum gain for the nuns. >> right. right. >> what happens if in this meeting that they're having this coming week in rome, they decide that they just can't go along with what the vatican is directing? what happens then? >> well it's quite possible that the sisters could form a separate organization that does not come under the cannonical auspices that the lcwr does. that's one of the possibilities on the table. >> another thing on that is on the bishops' schedule is talking about religious freedom. they're launching a campaign called "the fortnight of freedom" in the next couple of weeks. they've been talking about this. what are they doing kevin? >> well, they're launching this fourteen df day period that ends on independence day - very deliberately - to talk about religious freedom. but they're not just talking about the contraception mandate, which is the big thing that's gotten all of the attention, but

they're also talking about the ability to hire and fire people who share their faith, that that's a big deal. or the ability of catholic business owners to be able to set their own policies on things like offering birth control to their employees. it's not just about the public sphere but it's about the private sphere too. so the contraception is the one that's gotten all of the attention but they have a, it's sort of a multi-faceted agenda that they're looking at. >> and how has that campaign been received in the pews or what did the bishops want it to be received? how did they want it to be received? >> well they would like enthusiastic response from parishioners to write letters to members of congress, to do whatever they, is within their power to let congress and let the administration know how they feel. um, the response varies around the country. some parishes are whole-heartedly jumping behind it, some are doing less, some might in some places be just letting it go and letting people decide to do things on their own. it varies a lot from one place to another. >> and of course, the major thing on the schedule is, it's hard to believe it's the tenth anniversary of the bishops' development of their charter.

they call it their guidelines to prevent clergy sex abuse to protect children. what are they discussing now, ten years later? >> well, they're basically looking back to see how effective it's been. you know, have they been able to clean up the mess that erupted ten years ago. and to a large degree they have. but the continuing issue that they have, and again, it's sort of a public relations problem, is that they are seen as going after nuns and girl scouts and rogue theologians but there's still no real mechanism to hold bishops accountable. the men themselves who allow the problem to get out of hand, you can't sanction a bishop, you can't fire a bishop. only the pope can do that and there's no mechanism and so a lot of people say, you've done great work over the past ten years, thank you for that but you still need to hold yourselves accountable. >> and on the scale of the way things work in the church, ten years is actually a pretty short amount of time and i don't think there's much dispute that they've made huge progress in putting structures into place in parishes and dioceses to deal with any possible accusation that comes up and to deal with perpetrators as they appear and

also to help victims. ten years is a short amount of time as difficult as that might be to believe in this world. >> and in fact, i've heard some people say, believe it or not, you know, the catholic church may be one of the safest institutions for children because of all of that. people are looking at overseas it's being used as a model but yet not necessarily followed. are they looking to change or tinker with this policy at this meeting? >> they have not made any major changes, at least in the last couple years and there's been no real push for changes from within the conference but i think you're right we saw in the penn state scandal that, you know, this is not just a catholic problem and that penn state and schools and other industries can learn a lot from what the church has learned over these past ten years and that's really what the bishops started with. >> well, all right. thank you both for joining us.

in other news, more court decisions on gay marriage this week, meaning the issue may soon be headed to the supreme court. on wednesday, a federal judge in new york ruled against key sections of the defense of marriage act, the law that defines marriage as solely between a mand and woman. the judge said that infringes upon states' rights to regulate domestic relations. late last week, a federal appeals court in boston also said the law was unconstitutional. meanwhile, in california, an appeals court refused to review an earlier decision striking down proposition 8, the state's ban on gay marriage. supporters of prop 8 say they will now appeal that case to the supreme court. and washington state's new law legalizing gay marriage is now on hold. the measure was passed earlier this year, but opponents have gathered enough signatures to force a voter referendum on the issue in november. the world health

organization says three million girls a year undergo the painful, traditional custom of female circumcision. fred de sam lazaro has our story today about a former peace corp volunteer, molly melching, who is helping communities in the west african nation of senegal give up this ancient practice. >> reporter: in recent years, thousands of rural communities in senegal have held extraordinary public rallies they call "declarations," and they've declared an end to a deeply rooted practice, one rarely discussed in public, one commonly known as female circumcision. >> never in my wildest dreams could i have imagined that i would be sitting here years later, saying that 4,792 communities in senegal had abandoned. in the beginning it was just unthought of, unbelievable, because it was so taboo.

>> reporter: molly founded a group in the early 1990's. she had modest goals: to educate people about health and human rights, especially in rural areas and in local languages. the illinois native is fluent in the ways of senegal but she keeps a low profile in the work of tostan. tostan's work often begins with an ice- breaker, like an old movie. many in the audience have never watched a film. to overcome the language barrier, the selection is a buster keaton silent movie classic from 1923, and it's a hit. a more serious film followed, on vegetable gardening. it's all part of seminars on nutrition, health, basic human rights, and other issues-in groups, songs, dances, and drama.

>> she needs to be cut. all girls need that. >> reporter: it's proven to be one of the most promising attempts in history to wipe out what melching calls female genital cutting [fgc], a practice that dates back 2000 years. each year, the world health organization says up to 3 million girls in africa are subjected to genital mutilation, and up to 140 million women live with its consequences. >> you can't have a recognized marriage if she is not cut. >> reporter: that cut is a painful rite of passage for girls across a wide swath of predominantly islamic african and middle eastern countries. however, the practice goes back hundreds of years before islam or christianity and is also practiced in both faiths and religions native to this region. it's thought to have originated in the harems of ancient rulers as a means of controlling women's fidelity, or as a sign of chastity among those who aspired to be consorts.

>> those who were in the rest of society could move up, and you could marry someone who was more prestigious or had more money, more status, if you underwent this practice, because it was a sign of good reputation, and as the years went on, i mean 2,200 years, it became very much a part of what was considered criteria for good marriage. >> reporter: mel. ing came to this west african nation as a student in the 1970s and later as a peace corps volunteer. she stayed on to work on improving health education, which she found sorely lacking. >> when you see a friend that you've known for several months and you've gone to her house for lunch, and then she tells you her child has some problem, that it's someone who has cast an evil spell on the child, the baby, and that she's going to take them to a religious leader to get the

spell taken off, and you don't know what to say, and it turns out the baby was dehydrated. >> reporter: but from the health education, women began to understand infection, and melching says they began to connect the dots. >> so suddenly as they started learning germ transmission and the consequences of fgc and how these infections occur and why they had more problems in childbirth than other women who had not been cut, they started saying wait a minute. >> people used to be afraid to talk about this before. not anymore. >> reporter: but how did women in conservative, patriarchal societies become able to speak out, especially on a sensitive sexual topic? melching says it's because tostan involves men and religious leaders who've confirmed that cutting is not required. >> we share our modules

with the religious leaders so that they see that everything that we do is for the well-being of the community, the health, and all these things are things that islam espouses, and so they're very happy in general, but first of all they're happy because we start with them. we respect them. >> reporter: and that respect also carries over in the group's message on genital cutting. >> tostan found that using approaches that shame or blame people really was just the opposite of what would work in changing social norms. when you say to someone, we know you love your daughter and you're doing things because you love your daughter, but let's look at this and let's try to understand together exactly what are the consequences of this practice. but you are the ones who will have to make the decision. then suddenly people are willing to listen. they don't get defensive.

>> reporter: it's far more effective than the approach of many aid groups-religious, government, and private, says princeton university professor gerry mackie. >> not hectoring and preaching but having pro and con discussions. when we think of an ideal way of making a change, we'd say it's democratic. we all get together and talk it over and decide what the best thing is to do. whereas some development approaches would, say, force them to do it, pay them to do it, trick them into doing it. >> reporter: tostan's volunteers and staff who conduct its seminars all hail from the local communities. often they are leaders and elders speaking from personal experience or anecdotes. diarre ba used to make a living as a female circumciser. >> i was part of this process. i felt bad. this is not right. but i didn't know anything at the time. i had no learning.

>> reporter: others have painful, vivid memories. ibrahim sankare was very close to an older sister growing up. he walked into her room one evening. >> i saw her lying in a pool of blood. i thought someone had really hurt her. i screamed. my father explained to me. since then, even now i get goosebumps thinking about it. >> it was very painful. i will never-you ask me if i can forget it? i will never forget the pain. so painful. >> reporter: she's a long time campaigner against genital cutting, and she's spared her ten-year- old daughter the trauma. yet before she became involved with tostan and early in her marriage, she was determined to keep up the tradition. even her own husband was opposed to genital cutting. >> she insisted that she had to do it. there were so many problems if

you didn't do it. if you cooked meals, no one would eat your food. it's because we didn't know. people told us that it was our religion. if you don't do it, you'll be going against your religion. all this is false. but i alone can't do this in the village. >> reporter: they say tostan was able to insure they were not alone- that communities in which they intermarried were also thinking alike, that their daughters would still be marriageable. the large declaration ceremonies have been critical. >> one part of bringing about a change like this is to get everyone to change at once, what we call "coordinated abandonment." everyone has to see that everyone else sees that everyone is changing. de sam lazaro: genital cutting is not the only tradition they want to change. many communities have vowed to end the frequent practice of allowing older men to marry adolescent girls, acknowledging both the health risks and the girls' human rights. molly melching says there's plenty of historical precedent

for abrupt changes in social norms and attitudes. she sees a very current example every time she comes home. that's in american views about smoking. >> people were smoke g and nobody said anything about it much through the '50s, the '60s, and even the '70s. as people became more and more aware of the harm that it causes, more and more people-there was a critical mass of people who started really protesting. it was amazing for me, coming from senegal to the united states, to see how quickly things turned around. >> reporter: tostan's efforts have now expanded to 14 other african nations. for religion & ethics newsweekly, this is fred de sam lazaro in kaolack, senegal. finally, a love story about some old friends, ginny shedd and wil bloom. they had both lost their spouses. now in their seventies, they

reconnected, fell in love and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. getting married turned out to be a problem. but they are both religious, and did not want to just live together. so they found another way. bob abernethy tells the story. it was his cousin, reverend ann abernethy, who performed the commitment ceremony. >> reporter: it's called a ceremony of commitment. it's a completely religious, wedding like service with dmo legal involvement by the state. no marriage license, no official recognition, no use of the words marriage or husband or wife. >> in the presence of god and in the name of love. you ginny and wil come to have your union blessed by god and by this congregation. >> reporter: the two met 60 years ago at the northern baptist now american baptist conference center in green lake,

wisconsin. we met them at the brooksby village retirement center in pea body, massachusetts, north of boston. each had been married and had children and grandchildren and each had lost his or her spouse. they rediscovered each other, fell in love and wanted to be married. but they founder that for themselves and their families, marriage could bring substantial financial problems. issues of pensions, insurance, taxes and bequests. >> the legal problems and inheart ance problems with people our age with different families already in existence get very complicated. >> the legal entanglements that could come up, later on-i mean, it could happen to be quite fierce. if one of her kids said, "hey,

wait, that's ours, that's not yours"-i mean, that happens. bob abernethy: but although wil and ginny concluded it could be too costly to get married, as lifelong baptists they at least wanted their relationship to be blessed by the church and respected by their families and friends. >> we definitely wanted to be together, but we wanted to do it the proper way as an example for our own children and our grandchildren. we didn't want to be just living together without any ceremony of any type. >> there's got to be something significant about what we are doing. it has to have some more meaning, and we felt that the only way to do it would be to have a ceremony or service before- not just before our friends and our family and so on, but before god. >> reporter: rev lend ann abernathy knew about the service of commitment the united church of christ had developed

originally for gays and lesbians who at that time were not allowed to marry. that service became the model for what wil and ginny chose. rev. >> there's a yeshing in them, and that all wants to be expressed in terms of the sacred and the holy and within the context of god's presence. >> appealing to god to witness to your sincerity, do you, wilbur, take this woman who stands before you, choosing her alone from all the world to be your beloved life partner? >> i do. >> and then ginny's promises. >> this is my sacred vow. vow, spoken before the god who has brought us together. >> reporter: wil and ginny exchanged rings, they took communion together, and then they were blessed.

>> fulfill your promises. let the peace of christ rule in your hearts, remembering that as members of one body you are called to live in harmony, and never forget to be thankful for what god has done for you. >> we asked weather il and ginny ginny, looking back, how did they feel after their commitment service? >> it just felt so, just such a feeling of warmth and correctness, and just felt like christ was there with us. >> i felt up. i felt good, and i said, "holy mackerel, now ginny and i are for real." >> i just felt it was right. and i think that was a relief to me. i needed to feel that this relationship was right. >> well, to be honest with you, i said, now she's mine. >> reporter: i asked wil, what

do you call each other? what do you call your situation now? >> we are husband and wife. and when somebody we meet for the first time-"this is my wife, ginny shedd," and she says, "this is my husband, wil bloom," and as far as, you know, we are concerned, we are husband and wife until death do us part. >> that's our program for now. i'm kim lawton. you can follow us on twitter and facebook where i have a fan page, too. find us on youtube and watch us anytime on smart phones and something new, you can now find our videos including full episodes of our program on pbs's iphone and ipad app. it's free and available in the app store. there's much more on our website as well. you can comment on all of our stories and share them. audio and video podcasts are also available. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you, music from a covington, louisiana, gospel choir performing at the recent

jazz fest in new orleans. ♪ major funding for religion and ethics news weekly is provide bid the lily you been doimt. an inn ind based private family foundation. based to christian development and education. additional funding also provided by mutual of america. designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. the estate of william j. carter. the jane henson foundation. and the corporation for